By Aminata Phidelia Allie
The National Revenue Authority regional manager, north, has told a Freetown high court president over by M.A Paul that no entry of payment was made by the ADDAX Bio energy company into either the NRA’s daily collection report form or the cash.
Yakuba Conteh was testifying specifically against the second accused, Idrissa Fornah whom he identified as the revenue officer in charge of the cash book. He said the cash book was being handled by the accused alone, except in his absence “which never happened since I became the regional manager”.
He said there had been strict orders that no revenue officer should accept payments from taxpayers “whether in the form of cash, cheque or otherwise”. Rather, he went on, instructions were that taxes should be paid in the commercial banks in the country.
After payments, he said, taxpayers were requested to take their pay-in-slips together with other supporting documents to the revenue officer in charge of collection who would then issue them with a receipt.
“All necessary information about the transaction is then entered into the cash book by the officer in charge of it”, prosecution witness (PW) 10 told the court.
He further stated that a letter requesting certain documents to facilitate the investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission was sent to his boss, the NRA Commissioner General, in August, “a copy of which my boss sent to me”.
Conteh said he acted promptly by providing the necessary documents for the investigations. Apart from the forwarding letter, he went on to say, he forwarded the daily collection report form, a receipt voucher, several original and duplicated receipts and some FiBank slips.
The cash book, which bore no entry of the ADDAX payment of Le 392, 238, 864 was tendered in court.
Defense lawyers for the second accused objected to the cash book forming a part of the evidence because “there is no nexus between it and the charge for which the accused is before the court. It has no bearing to the count of conspiracy to defraud the NRA”. The judge overruled and the book was tendered in court to form part of the evidence against the second accused.
Being cross-examined by one of the lawyers for the second accused, Conteh confirmed that the order for the receipt of payments was never done in writing but was not aware of any case in which revenue was paid to officers of the NRA.
He also revealed that Ibrahim Conteh, the officer in charge of revenue collection and who also shared the same office as Idrissa Fornah, abandoned the office in July.
Though he got nothing positive when he mounted an internal investigation about Conteh’s whereabouts, he said that he was sure he ran away because of the investigations.
Before the regional manager’s testimony, the administrative manager of ADDAX, Graham Edward Michael Dankher, who testified as PW9, said that he handed a cheque and other supporting documents to Fornah who issued him with a receipt.
While he tendered the original receipt in court, Dankher said he never received any report of the cheque being missing while in custody of the NRA Makeni office.
The 17 ACC indictees are standing trial for alleged fraud and embezzlement contrary to the ACC Act. Seven of them are due in court this week while the trial of the ten others continues next week.
However, only five have since been standing before the High Court Judge, with the other two still at large. The matter comes up again today for further hearing.
(C) Politico 10/10/13
